South Hylton is an ecclesiastical parish, formed March 3. 1854 from the parish of
Bishopwearmouth, and comprises the township of Ford and Grindon House, in the civil
parish of Silksworth, and is bounded on the north by the river Wear and on the south
by the road from Sunderland to Chester-le-Street, with a station on the Sunderland
and Bishop Auckland section of the North Eastern railway, 3 miles west of Sunderland;
it is in the Houghton-le-Spring division of the county of Durham, north division
of Easington Ward, union, petty sessional division and county court district of Sunderland,
rural deanery of Wearmouth and archdeaconry and diocese of Durham. The parish is
lighted with gas by a company. The church of St. Mary, destroyed by fire March 9.
1878, was rebuilt in 1880, at a cost of £2,800, and consecrated June 21 of that year;
it is an edifice in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, north chapel and
a turret containing one bell: there are 340 sittings. The register dates from the
year 1820. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £300, with residence, in the
gift of the Bishop of Durham, and held since 1900 by the Rev. William Marshall Teape
M.A. of Edinburgh University and of St. John’s College, Cambridgeshire. Here are
Wesleyans, Primitive Methodist and United Methodist chapels, Christian Lay church
and Salvation Army hall. Mrs Scurfield, of Hurworth-on-Tees, is lady of the manor
and chief landowner. The population of the ecclesiastical parish in 1911 was 3,172.

FORD township, 2 miles west of Sunderland, is included in the ecclesiastical parish
of South Hylton. The principal landowners are Mrs Scurfield, who is lady of the
manor, and Mrs Pratt. Ford Hall, in this township, was the birthplace (April 5.
1795) of Major-General Sir Henry Havelock K.C.B. the renowned hero of Cawnpore and
Lucknow in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, who died at Alumbagh, 25 November, in that
year. Area, 1,028 acres of land and 28 of tidal water, and 21 of foreshore; rateable
value, £29,143; the population in 1911 3,113.